Hunter's Torn Quad

Todd Martin's review of Raw: DX burying multiple people in one go? Check DX pushed beyond intolerance? Check Potential money match pissed away? Check Sounds like almost any Raw of the last six months.

Should I be surprised that some people still think Montreal could have been a work?

You must desperately want to believe Montreal was a work.

From F4W: Figure Four Weekly Not that I expect anyone to change their mind, but there it is.

Who knows. It never aired, right? So we are likely saying that the fans crapped on it from several reports from the taping. Every report said the fans either booed it or just sat there, not reacting. This isn't one of those "well, we don't really know..." deals. We know. Hayes idea backfired. If the angle got over, it would have aired.

I don't really know, but I'm guessing it might have been to do with Owen wanting to leave after Montreal, ie: if Montreal was a work, then Owen didn't really want to leave, and so he willingly stuck around. Like I said, I don't know for sure, but it must have been significant if it was a key part of the defense.

Does this 'evidence' contradict the fact that legal arguments in the Owen Hart lawsuit confirmed, as if it was needed, that Montreal was real? I dont know much about the lawsuit but what surfaced in the Owen hart lawsuit that "confirmed" SS '97's legitimacy. Even Meltzer himself said that the full story has yet to be revealed. We're talking about a conspiracy between individuals. To me its just interesting that everything fell conveniently into place: THe evolution of Mr. McMahon, Bret bombing in WCW, miked during Wrestling with Shadows...ext. From Meltzer:

The thing I remember him doing on Smackdown is just after Cena turned babyface in 2004 Cena tagged with Benoit, and after the match Hayes pushed for Cena to FU Benoit to make him more of a lone wolf type. Everybody was against it, but Hayes talked to Vince privately, which got Hayes a lot of heat for being seen as promoting his own agenda, and he got Vince to OK it. The fans crapped all over it, and the segment never made it to air as a result. So instead of going the Stone Cold route with Cena's babyface turn like Hayes was pretty much suggesting - they went The Rock route and turned him into a corny catchphrasing cutesy babyface - which the audience crapped on. Not like this is indicative of any creative booking genius on the part of Hayes but maybe he knew that was the direction creative was going to take Cena's then over gimmick which is why he was pushing for the Austin-loner thing. The problem is that while Hayes got his way, it wasn't what the fans wanted to see. Maybe down the road, but there and then the fans did not want to see that out of Cena.

I believe he was close ally of Stephanie McMahon. I remember Lagana was assigned to ECW because Vince or Stephanie, I think Stephanie, wanted someone to keep tabs on Heyman and also because they felt Heyman wasn't going to last long and also wanted him there to take over if Heyman did go home.

Russo's nonsense deserves the most damning adjectives. I don't have a vendetta, but if it makes you feel better go ahead and think that. Nobody ever said Russo didn't have a hand in some of the biggest angles or storylines in WWE's boom period. But that does not excuse the horrendous things he did in WCW. Just because Russo, or Watts, or anyone else, had a hot period, that does not excuse when they fucked up big time. Even the biggest Watts fans accept that his tenure in WCW was a disaster. Doesn't seem like Russo fans, or Russo himself, can do the same.

Does this 'evidence' contradict the fact that legal arguments in the Owen Hart lawsuit confirmed, as if it was needed, that Montreal was real?

Vince Russo's reign in WCW saw some of the worst television in wrestling history; A 32-man WCW title tournament that featured almost nothing but screwjobs and interference in every match, and a tournament final that was ruined by pointless overbooking. Halloween Havoc '99 saw swerves for no reason other than to surprise people, for example Brad Armstrong beating the hot-out-of-the-gate Berlyn, and a pointless and meaningless attempt at a worked shoot with Hulk Hogan laying down for Sting, and then ending the night with an apprent title change only to reverse it the next night, which led into the aforementioned disaster of a title tournament Mayhem '99 was a terrible PPV with mind-numbingly stupid booking, stipulations that were broken, and gimmickry for no reason other than to have gimmicks. Starrcade '99 was another disaster, with some insipid booking and a boring and pointless rehash of Montreal, that people crapped on. And let's not talk about Russo's second run in 2000, because only the biggest Russo fans and Russo himself can defend that disaster. Well, this certainly reads like an unbiased, objective review of Russo's initial WCW run... Defend that nonsensical booking, then.

The thing I remember him doing on Smackdown is just after Cena turned babyface in 2004 Cena tagged with Benoit, and after the match Hayes pushed for Cena to FU Benoit to make him more of a lone wolf type. Everybody was against it, but Hayes talked to Vince privately, which got Hayes a lot of heat for being seen as promoting his own agenda, and he got Vince to OK it. The fans crapped all over it, and the segment never made it to air as a result.

Wait until you see the match. Chances are pretty good that the story told will make it seem credible that Danielson was able to last 60:00 with Joe.

--Michael Hayes was named today as new head writer of Smackdown. Alex Greenfield, who had been the head writer since Dave Lagana was reassigned, gave notice to the company because a movie he wrote was green lighted and he has to work in Los Angeles Meltzer. This could make things interesting internally, because when Hayes was with Raw he always politicked to keep SD and ECW below Raw. Not that the company needed help with that, but with Hayes being so upfront about it, it could make his time on SD interesting.

I don't know, but Meltzer has said he does know and that he'll only say who it is after that person has died. From that, I'm thinking Cornette.

I don't know if he claimed that or not. Did he come up with it? It's either in his book or in one of the interviews he gave to promote the book, where he claims to have been the one who came up with the sharpshooter spot. And no, he did not come up with it.

The same Vince Russo who claimed to have come up with sharpshooter spot in Montreal?

F4W Online

People with a brain know it, but that doesn't mean that is what will happen. And really, what has Joe gained by beating Jarrett? What does anyone gain? The person beating him stays where they were, and Jarrett stays where he is. Nothing changes.

While Russo's second tenure coming after two bad ones didn't do him any favors, it didn't help that instead of doing what was needed to stop WCW from heading over a cliff, he put his foot down on the accelerator. No. He only had Austin and Rock while they were super hot and the peak years of the Austin vs. Vince feud. While it's true the ratings did slide after Summerslam, and didn't reach the peak of the Russo era, business still peaked in that 2000-1 Kreski era, Russo fans often forget this, and instead focus on Russo getting higher ratings, while ignoring the fact that it was the Kreski era that the promotion's financial peak. Even had he been around, no way was Russo beating HHH on those political games. Hunter had a lot of power in 1999, but he had so much more in 2000 that he would have beaten Russo easily. What helped was Nitro getting cut to two hours which greatly changed the overall rating giving an artificial ratings boost, when there really was no increase in viewership. This is a common misconception. The clearance of TNN was virtually the same as USA, and certainly not enough to blame the change in channel for the ratings drop. TNN also quickly gained enough clearance soon after to be on a level to USA, which further throws that argument out of the window. I know some people also like to claim that fans couldn't find Raw and that is also somehow to blame for the ratings drop, but that argument is beyond silly.

My favorite Russo excuse was not being able to call Rhonda Singh fat.

Vince Russo's reign in WCW saw some of the worst television in wrestling history; A 32-man WCW title tournament that featured almost nothing but screwjobs and interference in every match, and a tournament final that was ruined by pointless overbooking. Halloween Havoc '99 saw swerves for no reason other than to surprise people, for example Brad Armstrong beating the hot-out-of-the-gate Berlyn, and a pointless and meaningless attempt at a worked shoot with Hulk Hogan laying down for Sting, and then ending the night with an apprent title change only to reverse it the next night, which led into the aforementioned disaster of a title tournament Mayhem '99 was a terrible PPV with mind-numbingly stupid booking, stipulations that were broken, and gimmickry for no reason other than to have gimmicks. Starrcade '99 was another disaster, with some insipid booking and a boring and pointless rehash of Montreal, that people crapped on. And let's not talk about Russo's second run in 2000, because only the biggest Russo fans and Russo himself can defend that disaster.

Impact ratings news from Alvarez: A 0.88 rating, with a 1.02 in males 18-49 and 1.28 in males 18-34. An average audience of 1m. They did quarters of 1.01, 0.92, 0.87 and 0.73

The idea was to make Danielson a throwback to NWA champions of old, where they'd regularly do 60:00 draws.